A couple weeks ago, my wife and I went to the 3:50 p.m. opening-day showing of the new, live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” movie. Our own children are now grown and scattered across the country, but our 27-year-old daughter thought it would be fun to buy us tickets for the premiere for Father’s Day weekend.
I should mention, we forgot our wallets. Tickets were on our phones, but no cash or card for popcorn. Classic. So, snack free, it was just the two of us, surrounded mostly by teens and younger kids. When the original film came out in 2010, our kids were at that perfect age, old enough to understand the story but still enchanted by dragons, adventure, and standing up to the crowd. They cheered for Hiccup, the awkward yet brave hero, because in many ways, he made sense to them—more than he made sense to us adults.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about education, instructional leadership, and the systems organizing schools. As a leadership researcher and former public school teacher and principal, I believe schools do an amazing job of moving kids from learning to read and write toward creating and innovating. But there are still significant misalignments. Many people working inside schools feel out of sync with those overseeing the system.
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“How to Train Your Dragon” speaks to that feeling. Hiccup doesn’t fit in with his Viking village’s way of doing things. The accepted method to defend against dragons is to charge head-on, weapons drawn.
But Hiccup sees differently. He designs a tool to capture a dragon, and when he comes face to face with one, everything changes. Instead of killing the injured dragon Toothless, he chooses to observe and care for it. He hides this secret not out of weakness but because he fears others won’t understand, that they might hurt the dragon and reject him. The stakes are high. Nurturing the dragon means carrying the weight of knowing he’s out of step with his father’s (and community’s) worldview, that while he might be right, he is also deeply alone.
Teachers, parents, and students often say they feel out of step with the broader education system. So how might principals lean into this kids’ movie for insight? Stay with me here. Principals are often encouraged to find solutions within existing school norms. But maybe “How to Train Your Dragon” offers something more. Beneath the dragons and humor, there are truths about leadership, courage, and what happens when someone dares to see differently.
Hiccup doesn’t lead with force or authority. He leads by noticing. He studies what others dismiss. He’s open to learn by what’s unspoken. Most importantly, he changes his actions based on what he learns. That’s not weakness; that’s leadership.
At its best, instructional leadership looks a lot like that. It doesn’t always charge ahead with the loudest voice or rely on tradition for tradition’s sake. Instead, it involves slowing down, paying attention, and staying open to the idea that what we think we know is truly not the whole story.
When Hiccup tends to Toothless, he learns not just about dragons but about himself, his community, fear, trust, and the risks of doing what’s right when it goes against the grain. School leaders face this every day. They notice when something isn’t working, act with care, and hold steady when others don’t yet understand the shift they’re making.
I just finished data collection on a three-year study with school-based leaders, and these are the same attributes the participants found when they perceived their work to be going well. Their kind of leadership doesn’t reject the system, but it doesn’t worship it, either. They seek to understand where the system works, where it harms, and where quiet change is needed.
So, there my wife and I were, no popcorn, no kids in tow, just the two of us in a darkened theater on Father’s Day weekend, watching a story we thought we already knew. But this time, something landed differently. Maybe because I’m older. Maybe because years of thinking about leadership, systems, and change have sharpened my view. Or maybe because parenting, the letting go, cheering from afar, remembering who you were when your kids were small, opens you to noticing the sweet things that you once missed.
“How to Train Your Dragon” isn’t just a story about dragons. It’s about leadership born in uncertainty, about having the courage to imagine new ways forward, and about the quiet strength it takes to care for what others fear. And that’s something school leaders, and all of us, can carry right about now.
